Extreme greeks - Letters

Washington Monthly, Nov, 2002 by Aristotle Tziampiris

In his review of Takis Michas' Unholy Alliance ("The New Anti-Americanism," September), Gregory Maniatis focuses on Michas's argument regarding the ideological rapprochement between the far left and certain elements of the neo-orthodox far right in contemporary Greece. This is a truly remarkable development that is fundamentally anti-modern and anti-globalization in nature, and hence only incidentally anti-American.

However, Greece's far left and far right are minority movements fighting a rearguard and futile battle, not unlike the Luddites who in centuries past quixotically battled industrialization. Their current importance and policy influence in Greece is even more marginal than Maniatis suggests, thanks to the existence of competing tradition in Greek society--a rational, enlightened tradition rooted in the work of Adamantios Koraes, perhaps the greatest Greek thinker in recent centuries. In this tradition, Greece is fundamentally European, while Greeks, 85 percent of whom are Europhiles, accept the country's modernization and welcome the challenges of globalization.

This tradition has given birth to a movement whose ranks include the majority of citizens, almost all mainstream politicians, and most leading intellectuals. They support human rights, regional democratic reform, economic growth, the incorporation of the Balkans into Euro-Atlantic structures as soon as possible. The Greek mainstream will continue to support such a foreign policy stance, despite vocal, reactionary, anti-Western elements that are destined to play, at best, a marginal role.

DR. ARISTOTLE TZIAMPIRIS Department of International and European Studies, University of Piraeus Athens, Greece